The Aethernauts
by Latyon
Summary: When the continuums of Time and Space break down, there is only one certainty: the end of both. The characters of the Fire Emblem canon team up under the leadership of a lowly sailor in order to save the future - and the past - from an unknowable, all-powerful horror. Rated T for violence and sexual content; rating may intensify. We'll see what happens.
1. Cosmic Wrath

Author Notes: Awakening really opened up a whole can of worms with its whole cross-universe motif, so I thought this was a good time to try out an FE fic. Yes yes, I know, I already have one - that thing is so old, though, and to be honest, I have no idea where it was going. Let's try something new! I hope you enjoy!

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Chapter 1: Cosmic Wrath

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Avenghelst was burning, and not with the red tongues of any normal fire. The flames seared bright white, with cores blue as lapis, blue as ocean - an unholy inferno. Fire from the depths of an evil heart. The refineries of the industrial district blew sequentially as the demonic flames spread, releasing blackened umbrellas of towering, acrid smoke seen hundreds of miles across the flat landscape. Citizens of the squalid fiefdom poured from the smoldering buildings onto the shit-covered streets, clambering over the bodies of their kin, tearing off clothes afflicted by the devilish flame, unable to quench its terrible thirst.

And yet, as the city died, Jäger knew that they had only themselves to blame.

He drew his blade and pressed the button hidden beneath the guard, lighting the instrument with a vibrant stygian blue. He stood atop the steel wings of his pegasus, a creature melded with the advances of modern technology, the pedestal upon which Jäger would claim his throne. The grasslands surrounding the city had been mostly spared by the fiery baptism of the cosmos, the breath of the Raptured Dragon. It was there that Jäger and his brothers-and-sisters-in-arms made their final stand.

"Brothers," Jäger called out, his voice booming over the waving wheat. He looked with an admiring eye to the men at the front of his army, the few who would listen to his pleas. The noble king of Pherae and his vassals; the stalwart Shepherds of Ylisse. He looked to the skies, to the knights of Ilia and Kralin, to the pilots of Skene and Nevehan, flying in a V-formation toward the heart of the nation. Over their comm systems, they could hear their leader speak.

"And sisters alike," the misfit lord continued, his short lavender blonde hair waving like the grasslands before them. The women in the crowd steeled their gaze at Jäger - Lady Lyndis, her Mani Katti gleaming in the light of the evil fire as if hungry for the souls of the unrighteous; the lithe Lucina, wielding the heaven's Falchion itself; the lonely Eirika, rapier in one hand and fallen brother's lance in the other.

"As we face certain death in these next hours, I ask that you look into yourselves! Look to the strength you have fostered, to the companionships you have built! Were it not for the faces around you - those faces once strange, some even alien - not a one of you would be here today, to fight for your world, to fight for the lives of those who cannot! To fight for those who _will_ not!"

As he spoke, a massive flaming stone streaked through the sky and smashed into Castle Avenghelst, the heart of their nation. Once thought the most beautiful construction in the combined history of taguel, manakete, and human, the cathedral-like walls came tumbling down, turned to ash and melted rock beneath the force of the falling meteor. Jäger did not turn to look - those who could see it behind him felt their hearts sink into their stomachs. They'd fought for that castle for so long - for its symbolic link between the species, for its tumultuous but storied history. For those who had died to secure it in countless wars over the centuries, on all sides. For the knowledge lost inside.

The rumblings of the ongoing war threatened to drown out Jäger's speech, but he pressed on, screaming with every little bit of air he could squeeze from his lungs. The steel pegasi above began to spit fireballs into the heart of the city, at the forming body of the world's death knell.

"If you wish to defect, I bear you no ill will! But know, that after today, there are only two possible outcomes - the defeat of the Raptured Dragon, or the eternal death of all else! Whether you fight for glory, family, or your own selfish reasons - all I ask, is that you fight!"

The thieves and assassins in his audience turned to acknowledge one another - the mercenaries and myrmidons bowed to Jäger's will. This was not a day for selfishness. For what use had they stockpiled wealth, if tomorrow, the world would be gone?

Jäger turned to face the city. He watched the smoke trail up into the sky, deforming around the nearly invisible face of the Raptured Dragon. Its eyes glew like the sun at high-noon - a light so powerful one couldn't help but turn away. But Jäger refused to turn.

"For life!" he cried, holding his stygian blade to the sky. "For love!"

He looked to the steel pegasi in the sky. Somewhere up there, his love had already begun the final battle.

He glanced back over his shoulder toward the army.

"For man and womankind, human or otherwise! Aethernauts, to arms!"

Lyndis and Lucina roared at Jäger like feral beasts of the wildlands; Eliwood and Hector's troops raised their lances and swords, their glowing tips like fireflies in the smoky night. The Reed brothers shared what was surely a final embrace; the dragon children, their last kisses.

The cosmic dragon came into full view at precisely the thirteenth-and-a-half hour of the solstice, as the shadow of their planet cast its darkened blot on the brilliant gas giant above. The sight of the beast was something that nobody had prepared for; its body followed no rules of science or physics, or even magic - alien geometries with tentacle-like growths sprouting from seemingly midair, with no distinguishable arms nor legs nor heads nor...

It was a being that none could comprehend, with a body that stretched all throughout time, and eyes that had watched each and every member of the army from their birth up until this point.

There was but one Beast that the dragon could not possibly see coming.

In the skies above, a single pilot gripped the reigns of a pegasus forged in the deepest part of the gas giant, that heavenly blue body hovering constantly in the sky. The Beast whinnied as it came to face the Raptured Dragon. The eldritch horror turned to face the horseman, in every possible timeline.

Its pilot felt the future suddenly vanish, the past become nothing but a fable - the pilot's skin turned inside out and his brain strung out across a thousand possible existences. He saw his wife - his husband - his children - his pets - his birth and his death, and the nothingness that was the universe without his presence. And just like that, the pilot was gone, everywhere, everywhen. He had never existed.

But the Beast remained.

Jäger looked to the skies, and saw the Beast hovering before the abomination which had claimed Avenghelst. Something had changed.

Jäger had lost his one weakness. Love.

He kicked his own pegasus in the side and launched into flight, his army storming the city beneath his mount's hooves.

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Review, please! I've gotta get to bed, but please let me know what you think! It's a bit different, sure, but if I'm merging timelines, the possibilities are endless!


	2. End of Days

Author's Note: Shout-out to the old fans who are still kickin' around! If anyone has any requests for FE characters to add to the story, don't hesitate to leave a review! So far, the few mentioned in chapter 1 are safe bets. I'm most comfortable with FE7, 8, and Awakening, but will consider all requests!

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Chapter 2: End of Days

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When Jäger set foot on dry land at Avenghelst Harbor for the first time in three months, he swore that some part of him was still out there on the ocean, rocking back and forth with the vicious waves of high tide. He couldn't have been happier to be home - he paused a second to take in a deep inhale of the smoky air before pulling the homegrown cigarette from behind his ear and lighting the end of it. The nicotine rushed to his brain, quelling the irritability of dealing with the deckhands aboard his workplace, the _Diamond Overture._

The city looked much different than he remembered. The skyline reached ever higher into the black cloud blocking the sun, metal cranes swinging their payloads in circles above the paved roads. Stagecoaches were becoming a rare sight, horseback transportation having fallen into disuse after the invention of the motorized gurney. It was for the best - it made breathing harder, what with the spewing of toxic exhaust, but that smell was infinitely preferable to the old odor of horse excrement baking in the city streets.

He hoisted his bag onto his shoulder, smiled, and set off down the road, past fishmongers and mountebanks, toward the sprawling cliffside estate that he called home.

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"And the Fools bring upon the world eternal Death; both righteous and wicked awaken to Void and Darkness, to the gaping maw of the Destroyer!"

The speaker, a man much too young for the apparent delusions he suffered, waved his arms for the attention of passersby, but received none. He pushed the spectacles sliding down the length of his hook nose back up, the bridge of cartilage raw from the repetitive nature of the action. His mop of shaggy blonde obscured the eyes behind the glass lenses.

"Look to the stars, and you'll see that I speak the truth! To the constellations Joon and Octavian, at the breaking of daylight - to the blinding fire of the Raptured Dragon!"

"Get lost, ya maniac!" called a passing businessman, from the other side of the road. The doomsayer shook it off - he was used to that sort of treatment.

"One year! One year from today, we shall all perish!"

Jäger passed by the wild doomsayer with a chipper beat in his step - home wasn't home without the crazy folks on the corner spewing their religious nonsense. He produced a bronze coin from his pocket and tossed it to the ground in front of the madman, as payment for the entertainment. It clinked against the cobblestone, stopping the doomsayer midsentence.

The sailor passed by, tossing the butt of the cigarette into the street, when he felt something heavy smash into the back of his skull - the bronze coin tinkled once more to the ground, a welt forming where it impacted Jäger's skin. He dropped his bag and turned to face the doomsayer, who had taken an aggressive stance toward him.

"What the bloody fuck is wrong with you?" the sailor shouted at the madman, "Do you not like money? Is that not what you're here for, soliciting donations for your cult?"

"I am _not_ a cultist, you dolt! What I am saying is the truth! I am here for awareness, not your pithy charity!"

Jäger sighed. He shouldn't have spoken. Now, he was exactly where the doomsayer wanted him - in a position to hear the eschatological gospel. The would-be prophet started up again, but Jäger waved his hand.

"I'm not interested, guy. Not in the slightest. I don't believe in apocalypses, or gods, or your fools and dragons and astrology-"

"This is no astrology, sir; far from. This is naught but good old-fashioned astronomy. And I say to you again - watch the horizon. You shall see. You all shall see."

"The funny thing about old-fashioned astronomy is that it was all bollocks_. _I wish you good health in your 'final year,'"

Jäger scooped his coin up from the road and scoffed at the madman. _Astronomy. Pah. The man makes a mockery of such noble science._

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The remaining walk to the public gurney was plagued with annoyance at the pain radiating from Jäger's crown. He'd never experienced such venom from a street preacher. As he boarded the vehicle amidst the well-dressed denizens of the Kralic capital, he found himself unable to rid his thoughts of that ungrateful man.

The gurney dropped him off at the foot of the overgrown drive leading through the wrought iron gate of the Schenkkan family estate, a dilapidated three-story country home overlooking the ocean. From the bottom of the hill, he could see his sister Francesca rocking in a chair on the porch, her pregnant form unmistakable even from so far away. Three children tossed a leather ball around the yard, a young mauthedoog chasing it through the air.

Francesca saw her sailor brother's unusual shade of hair from atop the hill and stood from her chair, waving the green and black fabric she'd been sewing on the porch.

"Mum! Mother, Jäger's home! Come quick!"

The children dropped the ball at the sound of their uncle's name, their faces alight - the leather landed on the ground and was promptly devoured by the doog, the sound of air hissing through the holes punched by its razor teeth. Jäger trudged up the dirt path as the children rushed toward him in massive bounding leaps.

Jenoah, the oldest of his nephews, was the first to arrive, hugging Jäger around the waist, trying for the bag slung over his back. It was huge, and heavy - and probably full of exotic gifts from across the ocean. The two girls wrapped around his legs, immobilizing him, their excitement drowning out the welcoming calls of Jäger's mother and sister.

By the time Jäger reached the porch, the sun had gone down. His mother, a proper woman who'd only just recently begun to show the signs of time's passing, brought him in for a hug, tears held back behind murky brown eyes. Francesca reacted similarly; Jäger could not believe how far along her fourth pregnancy had come.

"Mother - sister - I have such tales from the sea. Such wonderful things to show you. But I am weary, and have not slept on solid ground in too long. Forgive me if I do not join you for supper this eve," the sailor relented.

Francesca and Mrs. Schenkkan shared a look that Jäger recognized. The look of knowing sorrow. Despite the joyous exultation of the children as they awaited their souvenirs, Jäger's mood sunk.

"Mom? Is...something wrong?"

"Jäger...it's about your father..."

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Jäger stood beneath the light of the moon an hour after the nightly lunar eclipse, at his father's headstone. The elation he'd felt from being home, after so long, had all vanished. Now he felt nothing. No happiness, no pain. Shell shock.

There were no words. He'd waited three months to see the man who'd shaped his life. The man who'd built their estate with his bare hands, who'd devoted his life to the Schenkkan name. But Jäger would never see him again - not even to say goodbye.

He dropped to his knees and wept into the dirt.

Leuther Halvard Schenkkan. Age 56. Black lung, they said. Killed by the city he'd helped create.

When the wind chill dropped too low for Jäger to stay outside, he went into the barn and locked up the towering wooden door. He would sleep there, for whatever time he had left to sleep.

As he made his bed from hay and an old tattered blanket, he approached the stall closest to the front of the barn, where he beheld a sleeping pegasus. The only true friend he had left in this city. The winged horse had slept most of the night, and was still unaware that its owner had come home.

_Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be better._

Jäger lay upon the scratchy hay and closed his heavy eyes, but sleep was a distant dream. When he noticed the light streaming through the barn doors turning blue with the morning's approach, he stood, restless, and stretched. Perhaps all he needed was a Kralic sunrise, with its vibrant polluted pinks and greens.

He lit a cigarette and watched as the moon sank to the horizon out west. He heard the pegasus stirring in its stall - she could smell him. She was probably itching for a ride - with Leuther gone, gods only knew how long it'd been since she'd stretched her wings.

Jäger flicked the embers of the tobacco into the sky. As they fell, Jäger saw the brief flashing of burning paper pass in front of the glowing moon.

And as the cigarette died a graceless death, Jäger noticed that the embers had not.

Seven bright red lights emerged from behind the moon and streaked through the sky, toward the horizon, before disappearing as suddenly as they'd appeared.

_What in the hell...I must not have slept a wink..._

His pegasus whinnied for attention - it was time for her feeding.

Jäger looked once more to the moon, sure he'd been hallucinating. He saw no sign of the streaking fires.

He entered the barn and approached the pegasus; the horse neighed and retreated from his touch. She acted as though she did not remember him. Either that, or she was scared of him. Definitely scared of something...

The sound of hay crunching behind Jäger betrayed his assassin's presence.

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Reviews are appreciated! Poor Jäger just can't catch a break, can he?


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